Despite what legal descriptions suggest, fields are not perfectly flat, perfectly square, and perfectly featureless. Most fields have at least one pothole, a clump of trees, or an old grain bin that must be worked around. One of my projects this summer involved calculating just how much such an obstruction costs. The legal term for [...]
I recently toured a greenhouse that’s growing over two acres of cucumbers. White flies are a big problem for greenhouse cucumbers, but not for field cucumbers. Out in the fields, white flies are quickly devoured by predatory insects, so they rarely cause any significant damage to cucumbers. The most cost-effective solution for controlling white flies [...]
One of our clients planted two different varieties of soybeans side by side in a field. At harvest time he saw a huge difference in yield from one strip to the next. He estimated that planting the lower-yielding variety cost him half a million dollars across his farm. How can he prove that it is [...]
Fall is a great time to apply fertilizer. When the fields are ready to seed in spring, the last thing you want to do is delay seeding while you put down fertilizer. In fall, there’s usually plenty of time between when the crop is off and snowfall to put in fertilizer. Fertilizer prices are usually [...]
I hadn’t heard of the Rodale Institute before, but their Farming Systems Trial comparing organic and conventional agriculture looks interesting. It looks as though they are comparable in terms of yield, but the organic system commands a price premium and saves energy. My big question right off is whether the personnel costs were included for [...]
With the large number of unseeded acres this year, many producers are considering hedging their bets for next spring by planting some winter wheat. Here are 8 tips for maximizing your winter wheat production. Choose your field carefully. Seeding into spring wheat stubble is a bad choice as pests and diseases can carry over. If [...]
I recently attended a webinar on Managing Fusarium Head Blight Risk using WeatherFarm. Key Principles for managing Fusarium Head Blight by Dr. Jeanie Gilbert of Cereal Research Centre (Plant pathologist for AAFC). 1993 was the most severe epidemic of FHB. The disease is driven by environmental conditions, so it varies a lot from year to [...]
The Canola Council had an interesting webinar presented by Tom Wolf of AAFC: Spraying Tips for 2011. You have to submit an email address to register, but it’s free otherwise. Here are my notes. Ongoing dilemma is matching drift control versus coverage. Spray Drift Tips Choose a herbicide that can handle large droplets. Group 2, [...]
In most cases, reseeding isn’t worth it, so why bother counting your plant stand? First, it’s not too late to adjust the seeding rate on any late seeded fields. With what you’re seeing, you can adjust the seeding rate, depth, and speed to improve the plant populations in those fields. Second, it gives you a [...]
This blog post, Sustainable Wheat Production Through Intensification, make a good point. If we want to preserve more wilderness area and reduce agriculture’s geographic footprint, we need higher yields. Farmers don’t want to farm marginal land. Before widespread use of fertilizers and better crop varieties, the only way to produce more food was to clear [...]
